Senior Network Engineer

Senior Network Engineer

Salary: Up to £65,000 DOE + separate on-call allowance + paid callout payments

Location: Basildon, Essex – Hybrid, with occasional customer site and data centre visits

We are recruiting for an experienced Senior Network Engineer to join an established UK Managed Service Provider (MSP) that operates its own ISP and datacentre infrastructure, as well as delivering complex managed network services to enterprise and Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) customers.

This is a hands-on senior technical role where you will become a key technical authority across the network environment, working alongside an experienced Network and ISP Engineering team.

You will be responsible for the design, installation, migration and ongoing support of both internal service-provider and datacentre networks, as well as managed customer estates. The role offers excellent technical variety, with Cisco and Fortinet technologies at its core and a strong service-provider routing element built around BGP.

Key responsibilities:

• Take ownership of network installation and migration projects from start to finish

• Work closely with the Network Manager, Account Managers and customers to deliver projects successfully

• Maintain and develop the ISP and datacentre network, including core routing, peering, transit and edge connectivity

• Configure, manage and troubleshoot multi-customer firewall environments using FortiGate, FortiManager and Sophos XG

• Configure and support Cisco Nexus datacentre and ASR edge/service-provider platforms

• Configure and troubleshoot BGP, including peering and route policies

• Maintain and develop network monitoring and alerting systems

• Provide technical support across customer and internal network environments

• Participate in the 24/7 out-of-hours on-call rota, with a separate on-call allowance and paid callout payments

• Attend customer sites and datacentres for installations, migrations and technical support when required

The ideal candidate will have:

• Strong senior-level network engineering experience within an MSP, ISP or service-provider environment

• Extensive hands-on BGP experience, including design, peering, route policy and production troubleshooting

• Strong Cisco routing and switching experience, particularly Cisco Nexus and ASR

• Excellent Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking knowledge, including VLANs, trunking, STP, EIGRP and network redundancy/HA

• Datacentre networking experience, including resilient network design and structured cabling

• Strong Fortinet experience, particularly FortiGate and FortiManager

• Experience with firewalling at scale, NAT, IPS, web and antivirus filtering, IPSec site-to-site VPNs and SSL VPNs

• Understanding of internet connectivity including FTTC, FTTP and leased lines, together with transit and peering concepts

• Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills

• Excellent customer-facing communication skills

• Full UK driving licence

Desirable experience and qualifications:

• CCNP or equivalent

• Fortinet NSE/FCP certification

• HPE Aruba, Cisco Meraki or Ubiquiti UniFi

• Sophos or Cisco ASA/Firepower

• Windows Server knowledge

• Hyper-V or VMware

• Experience working within CNI, datacentre or other high-availability environments

We are looking for someone who is dependable, calm under pressure and methodical when troubleshooting. You will need to be comfortable working independently, taking ownership of issues and projects through to completion, while also being a strong team player with a customer-focused approach.

This is an excellent opportunity for a Senior Network Engineer looking for a technically challenging role with exposure to ISP, datacentre, MSP and enterprise environments. You will have the opportunity to work on complex infrastructure, take ownership of significant network projects and continue developing your technical expertise across multiple technologies.

Salary is up to £65,000 depending on experience, with a separate on-call allowance and paid callout payments in addition to the basic salary.

WE Talent acts as an employment agency for permanent recruitment.

We are committed to creating inclusive recruitment processes and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds. We believe diverse teams bring broader perspectives, stronger ideas and better outcomes, and we encourage applications from anyone who meets the key requirements of the role